The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical worldThe Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power.
How envy, spite, and the pursuit of admiration influence politicsWhy do governments underspend on policies that would make their constituents better off?
A collection of distinguished essays by some of today's best nonfiction writers and journalistsFrom a Swedish hotel made of ice to the enigma of UFOs, from a tragedy on Lake Minnetonka to the gold mine of cyberpornography, The Princeton Reader brings together more than 90 favorite essays by 75 distinguished writers.
A provocative reassessment of the rule of law in world politicsConventionally understood as a set of limits on state behavior, the "e;rule of law"e; in world politics is widely assumed to serve as a progressive contribution to a just, stable, and predictable world.
Safeguarding Democratic Capitalism gathers together decades of writing by Melvyn Leffler, one of the most respected historians of American foreign policy, to address important questions about U.
In the 1930s and 1940s, rural reformers in the United States and Mexico waged unprecedented campaigns to remake their countrysides in the name of agrarian justice and agricultural productivity.
How the Ottomans refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authorityThe medieval theory of the caliphate, epitomized by the Abbasids (750-1258), was the construct of jurists who conceived it as a contractual leadership of the Muslim community in succession to the Prophet Muhammed's political authority.
How ordinary citizens band together to bring about real changeIn an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty slogan?
How religious barriers stalled capitalism in the Middle EastIn the year 1000, the economy of the Middle East was at least as advanced as that of Europe.
How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperityContemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards.
Since 1990, more than 10 million people have been killed in the civil wars of failed states, and hundreds of millions more have been deprived of fundamental rights.
Since the mid-2000s, public opinion and debate in China have become increasingly common and consequential, despite the ongoing censorship of speech and regulation of civil society.
The conventional wisdom holds that the president of the United States is weak, hobbled by the separation of powers and the short reach of his formal legal authority.
The story of a Princeton professor's role as the unofficial philosophical adviser to the Spanish governmentThis book examines an unlikely development in modern political philosophy: the adoption by a major national government of the ideas of a living political theorist.
What today's political thinkers can learn from the radical democratic movements of twentieth-century AmericaThis is a major work of history and political theory that traces radical democratic thought in America across the twentieth century, seeking to recover ideas that could reenergize democratic activism today.
How Machiavelli's Christianity shaped his political thoughtTo many readers of The Prince, Machiavelli appears to be deeply un-Christian or even anti-Christian, a cynic who thinks rulers should use religion only to keep their subjects in check.
Applying an original theoretical framework, an international group of historians and social scientists here explores how class, rather than other social bonds, became central to the ideologies, dispositions, and actions of working people, and how this process was translated into diverse institutional legacies and political outcomes.
In this ambitious exploration of how foreign trade policy is made in democratic regimes, Daniel Verdier shows that special interests, party ideologues, and state officials and diplomats act as agents of the voters.
The acute economic pressures of the 1980s have forced virtually all of Latin America and Africa and some countries in Asia into painful austerity programs and difficult economic reforms.
America's increasing racial and ethnic diversity is viewed by some as an opportunity to challenge and so reinforce the country's social fabric; by others, as a portent of alarming disunity.
How the government enforced sex and gender conformity and relegated gays to second-class citizenshipThe Straight State is the most expansive study of the federal regulation of homosexuality yet written.
Speculations about the effects of politics on economic life have a long and vital tradition, but few efforts have been made to determine the precise relationship between them.
How middle-class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and contributes to authoritarian resilienceConventional wisdom holds that the rising middle classes are a force for democracy.
The life and times of a uniquely American testamentIn his retirement, Thomas Jefferson edited the New Testament with a penknife and glue, removing all mention of miracles and other supernatural events.
A bold new approach to combatting the inherent corruption of representative democracyThis provocative book reveals how the majority of modern liberal democracies have become increasingly oligarchic, suffering from a form of structural political decay first conceptualized by ancient philosophers.
How transatlantic thinkers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries promoted the unification of Britain and the United StatesBetween the late nineteenth century and the First World War an ocean-spanning network of prominent individuals advocated the unification of Britain and the United States.
How a controversial biblical tale of conquest and genocide became a founding story of modern IsraelNo biblical text has been more central to the politics of modern Israel than the book of Joshua.
A revealing look at Jewish men and women who secretly explore the outside world, in person and online, while remaining in their ultra-Orthodox religious communities What would you do if you questioned your religious faith, but revealing that would cause you to lose your family and the only way of life you had ever known?
A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceWhy the conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring is wrongThe Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East.
